Rome Prize Fellowship: Creating Community for Landscape Architects

In a wide-ranging interview recorded last week with LAND Online, American Academy President Adele Chatfield-Taylor discussed the once-in-a-lifetime experience the Rome Prize Fellowship provides, encouraged landscape architects to apply for the fellowship, and provided tips on what makes a successful candidate.

To hear the full interview, click here to listen to the September edition of the LAND Online podcast. Readers can subscribe to the ASLA podcast through iTunes, Odeo, and Podcast Alley. The podcast is also available through Podshow.

For those who are unfamiliar with the Rome Prize, can you give us a brief history of the prize, the American Academy in Rome, and in particular landscape architecture’s place within the academy? How long has landscape architecture been a discipline within this program?
The academy was founded in 1894, and it was originally a school of architecture. But because Frederick Law Olmsted was one of our founders and a very important thinker about what the academy would be doing—which was, in essence, to be a graduate school of architecture that would welcome any gifted American who worked in the architecture profession—it was always accepted that landscape architecture should be among the disciplines that were supported. The idea was that the most gifted graduates in the very few programs that we had in the 1890s—there were only four or five of them—that those people would be spotted by their deans, recommended for the Rome Prize, there would be a competition, and those who were chosen would go to Rome to see some of the great masterworks of civilization.

The truth is, though, that we didn’t have a landscape architecture fellowship until 1920, and then for many years we had one landscape architecture fellowship, and in recent years we’ve been able to make that two thanks to the growing endowment. Most of the fellowships are 11 months, but we now have an opportunity for a six-month fellow, and for the first time this year we have two six-month fellows going, plus one full-year fellow.

What types of projects do landscape architecture fellows typically work on during the fellowship? If there’s nothing typical, what are some recent examples of projects landscape architects have undertaken?
We get two kinds of landscape architecture applicants—everyone is unique, but I would group them into two categories: One is very traditional professionals, people who are part of offices who are looking for a sabbatical or some time to do some independent work. We love hearing from those people who have had a few years of experience, anywhere from five to 30 years of experience—although 30 would probably be a pretty extreme example. And they are looking for a time to do some independent things. That would be one group.

The other group would be the people who want to become known as landscape architects as artists. Those are people who are making things in the landscape that are less traditional. These are people who consider themselves more visual artists, let’s say, or sculptors, than people working on shaping space in the traditional way.

When they propose a project they would be proposing them within those realms, I would say. Sometimes you find someone who wants to cross over—usually someone who’s a more traditional professional who wants to cross over to become a more independent artist. Other times you find those who might say they want to study various natural resources as systems and how they’ve been crucial to Rome over the years. They might simply want to study Roman gardens, artifacts in the landscape—it varies tremendously.

And I hasten to say that the academy jury will look at those proposals as kind of an intelligent test to consider how an applicant thinks about things and how they approach projects, but we don’t insist that the winner do the project. That’s not to say that we don’t care—we do care, and we care a lot—and we hope that the winner makes the most of their time in Rome. But sometimes people have never been to Rome, they’ve never been abroad, so they’re trying to predict what’s best to do with their time, but they might find a more worthwhile way to spend their time once they get there.

What we care about is having people make the most of the opportunity, not making sure they do X, Y, and Z. We don’t look over their shoulders, in other words.

The projects landscape architects work on in Rome do not necessarily have to relate to the city or Italy, is that correct? Do projects that would benefit from resources in Italy receive special consideration?
That’s correct. I will say that the jury tends to prefer people that seem to have a reason to be in Rome, although that’s not true every year. Our real criterion is excellence, meaning intelligence, potential, motivation, and brains. We don’t look at past accomplishment as much as we look at an ability to make the most of this opportunity. And there should be some sense that they can make a contribution to the profession and to the arts in general.

That said, if the proposal said they wanted to spend the year in Paris, I think they would do less well than the person who says they want to be in Italy. But a lot of our fellows are away from the academy for various good reasons from time to time, so we don’t expect people to be there every day all day. Once again the emphasis is on the exceptional quality of the person, not just what they’re going to do in Rome.

You’ve mentioned the jury several times, I take it the applications go through a jury process of some kind?
They do indeed. They go before the design jury, which considers not only the landscape architecture applicants, but also the architects and the design applicants, which is a much broader category. We have six fellowships altogether that the jury recommends and that the board then confers—two in landscape architecture, two in architecture, and two in design. The landscape fellowships are the Prince Charitable Trust Fellowship in Landscape Architecture and the Garden Club of America Fellowship in Landscape Architecture. And, as I mentioned, if it’s a six-month fellowship—and that’s something the applicant would decide—then there is another fellowship, which is the Kate L. Brewster. The jury works with these various opportunities and matches them up with the people that they have before them.

The jury rotates every year, which is another reason why I would encourage people who do well in the application process but don’t win to reapply. This is a very important thing to say, because often people don’t win until they’ve applied several times. I hope that you’ll send this message to your constituents, because it’s a tragedy if you’ve got three or four really top people, and you can only give two fellowships, not to hear from those people again.

I would also add that we always have a good representation of landscape architects on the jury, and we also have a good representation of fellows who can judge who would do well. I think they do a very good job, but we do rotate them every year so that the opportunity is seen as a fresh one every year.

As applicants consider the materials they submit, is there anything they should keep in mind? What separates a successful submission from an unsuccessful submission?
Probably the saddest thing I see every year at the juries are people who are part of a large office and send in their portfolios and don’t always make clear what they personally contributed to a design project. If it was a big job, and they were part of a team, then it’s hard for the jury to assess what they brought to that project. So the advice I would give is for people to make that excruciatingly clear if they can and to also include in the submission anything that is really their own work. Because sometimes they get passed over if that’s not clear.

I also think the jury really loves to see things that are drawn by hand and anything that would indicate how an applicant would stand out from others. Anything that’s personal is very well received—something that would show their own idiosyncrasies as artists and indicates their own excellence.

To apply for Rome Prize fellowships, visit the American Academy in Rome website.